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Ha! I should have researched that instead of relying on my fading memory of the era. I'll footnote your point when I get a chance to update the post.

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Also, PS2 mouses and keyboards have physically identical but electrically incompatible connectors, which is like a precursor of the nightmare that is USB. ADB is positively magic in comparison.

And not hot-pluggable. I lost track of how many motherboards I had to replace due to hot-plugging PS2 devices.

Note: keyboards and mice were pretty low risk. High risk were PS2-based barcode scanners.

Well, nothing will break if you mix them up. It's just the command protocol which is different. I recall there was a Linux hack-patch which could use an extra keyboard in the mouse connector.

Not to say there weren't problems. I had a Compaq couldn't speak to most PS/2 keyboards, so when my keyboard broke, I had to go find another Compaq keyboard on campus before I could use the computer again.

Sudden flashbacks to the "PS/2 to USB" adapters that came with some keyboards, but were just electrical connections, no adapter at all. So they'd only work with keyboards that were able to speak both USB and PS/2.

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